To The Mom With Morning Sickness:
I saw you at the store today. You shuffled your feet, just trying to make it through. Trying to decide what to get that you could make for your family without making yourself feel sick. Who am I kidding? Cereal. That’s what I hope you got for them. Cereal. And some milk. Even some almond milk. They will be ok to eat cereal for a few meals, until the box runs out.
I remember the first three months. Complete exhaustion. Trying to just keep the family fed and laundry somewhat done so everyone had some fresh underwear. Other than that, the kids would watch TV while I lie on the couch trying not to be sick. I would look in the mirror. No energy to do anything at all with my hair. Make-up? I just can’t. I cannot put forth any energy to that. I so look in the mirror and see my pale face. My hair in a rubberband. And I try to give myself grace. I can’t do it all. I can’t be it all. Right now, I am growing a human and trying to keep the other humans alive that live in my house. It’s like a three month flu for some of us.
Yes there are good days where you wonder, am I out of the woods? Am I turning a corner, with the next day to be just as trying as the very first. Morning sickness is not for the wimps. Missing out on activities because I just couldn’t stand the smells, or the temperature outside or….whatever it may be. I just needed my bed.
But today when I saw you momma, at the store, you were the most beautiful person there. I know you didn’t feel the best. You didn’t feel strong. You were just trying to make it through. But you looked beautiful. Your face was radiant and light was beaming from you. My heart looked at you and as I remembered those days of morning sickness and how hard they were. But I also remembered how sacred they were and now I look back at them as the ‘good days’. The life growing inside of you dear mother, is such a profound and complex thing. We don’t understand it even though science has become so advanced. We don’t even have to tell our bodies to start building a placenta, to start forming a baby. But all this happens. Life being formed within us. A tiny little baby who will grow up someday to probably do some pretty great things. Who knows who you are carrying in your womb? We don’t. But we know He does. And it’s so magnificent as we do our mundane tasks of cooking, laundry and the like, GOD is doing a mighty, mighty work right inside of US.
“ For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Psalm 139:13
It might feel like all you are doing is trying to make it through another day. You’re just trying to not be sick. You are just trying to stay awake and pray that you can get a nap in or go to bed at 7 p.m. And as you strive to make it through just one more day, God, our great GOD is at work within YOU, creating and weaving something absolutely beautiful. You are his vessel to bring forth LIFE. And isn’t that what He’s all about? LIFE. Bringing life, bringing hope to a hurting world. Don’t underestimate this time in your life, dear mother. Great and wonderful things are taking place, even if you feel quite the opposite.
And one day, it will be gone. The nausea. The exhaustion and you will forget that you even experienced it. This is your season. Do your best, but allow God’s grace to come over you. Lower your expectations and marvel in the goodness of what’s taking place in you and God’s greatness that He has chosen you as a mother of this child. You have been blessed. What a gift. What a beautiful gift. As Mary carried the most precious gift the world could ever experience, she did so with a willing heart. May we take her example, “Yes Lord. Be unto me as you have said.” And may we as mothers with first trimester troubles remember, He is doing a MIGHTY thing within us. And that is quite beautiful.